As the Boston Globe reports:
The US Senate defeated a bid yesterday to limit federal regulation of greenhouse gases, instead siding with the White House and environmentalists who said regulators must have sufficient tools to fight climate change.
The GOP-backed resolution would have denied the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to implement carbon dioxide emissions rules crafted under the federal Clean Air Act. By rejecting the measure, 53 to 47, senators buoyed a more comprehensive climate and energy bill championed by Senator John F. Kerry.
Opponents of the resolution, referring frequently to the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, said it made no sense to undermine efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions and reduce dependence on oil and other fossil fuels.
“Why is it that the United States of America is more dependent today on foreign oil than we were before Sept. 11?” Kerry said during a fiery floor speech. “Because we haven’t done anything – nothing – to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We have an opportunity to do it now. This is about that.”
The Colorado Independent has local reactions–after all, both Colorado Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet voted against the Murkowski amendment, once again on the wrong side of the “Conservadems” they’re fashionably lumped with. In this case, several prominent “Conservadems” like Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln were cosponsors of the GOP’s amendment, so it’s a distinction that couldn’t be clearer (note to Rachel Maddow). And of course, you can’t utter the words “carbon dioxide” in Colorado without Sen. Kevin “Flat Earth” Lundberg getting a quote:
“The Gulf disaster is a painful reminder that we must move our country off of oil,” Environment Colorado field director Gavin Clark said in a release. “We’re thankful that today Sens. Udall and Bennet voted against this Washington bailout to big oil and other polluters. We urge [Udall and Bennet] to now help pass a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill through the Senate this year.”
The resolution had the backing of Republicans and some coal-country Democrats like Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. Colorado Republicans predictably slammed the EPA and praised Murkowski’s efforts.
“We’re not talking about a knee jerk reaction to an oil spill in the Gulf,” state Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said in a release. “We’re talking about the EPA taking authority they don’t have and declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant, which is absurd.”
You have to admit–even during the most vitriolic infighting and drive-by punditry, guys like Lundberg do a great job reminding everybody paying attention what side they’re really on.
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> About 30% of the CO2 we are spewing into the atmosphere gets taken up by the oceans.
>CO2 dissolved in water forms carbonic acid and lowers the pH.
> The oceans are becoming more acidic.
>When oceans are more acidic, calcium is more likely to remain in solution, rather than precipitate out as a carbonate.
> The hard parts of many marine organisms, including corals, are calcium carbonate.
> Corals and plankton form the base of many food webs and the structure of important marine habitats.
> Atmospheric CO2 is increasing at about 1% per year.
> At current rates, it will take just a couple decades for atmospheric CO2 to exceed 500ppm.
Science Daily
NOAA Research
Scientific American
And, of course, there’s much more …
Google “carbon dioxide ocean acidity”
With 47 votes I think that means the end of the road for climate legislation. 47 “yes” votes on Murkowski are almost certainly at least 45 “no” votes on cloture for a climate bill.
The Kerry-Lieberman bill, under the best of circumstances, would have maybe kept us at 450ppm. There’s a fairly wide consensus in the scientific community that 450 would result in catastrophic species extinctions and widespread loss of human life. So, it might be better in the interim to have EPA regulate greenhouse gases, while a separate and hopefully aggressive (due to Gulf spill) “clean energy” bill is passed, and then go back to the drawing board in 2011 on a climate bill.
Despite the fact that even many elementary school children understand, thanks in part to Al Gore, that there is no room left for compromise in dealing with the climate crisis, Senators in DC still seem to think you can negotiate and compromise with Mother Nature. Hence the statements from Senate staffers along the lines of “the votes aren’t there for 350. 450, maybe–but not 350.” It is that kind of inanity that we must combat. Politics as usual, and compromise, will be wholly insufficient to deal with the climate crisis.
Obviously Kevin Lundberg isn’t a golfer, or he would have known that in Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA in fact does have the power to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.